


Fresh Snow and Shouyou

by lunatricity



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Aged up characters, Fluff, Lots of Cats, M/M, bg kuroo tetsurou/kozume kenma, cats!!!, theme: fresh snow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-12
Updated: 2019-12-12
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:28:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21765322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunatricity/pseuds/lunatricity
Summary: *** SPOILERS FOR HAIKYUU CHAPTER 375 ***Tsukishima and Hinata cat sit while Kenma is away.For theCold and Cosy Haikyuu Bingobeing run by @HeyMellieJellie on twitter.
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Tsukishima Kei
Comments: 16
Kudos: 100
Collections: Haikyuu Cold and Cozy Bingo





	Fresh Snow and Shouyou

Kei wakes to the insistent tapping of a paw to his face.

A cold paw.

Kei does not own a cat.

Kenma, however, owns six - and Kei has somehow found himself looking after all of them, while Kenma and Kuroo are away.

Well, that’s not completely true. Hinata’s sharing the job. Doing the bulk of the work in fact, the promise of which was what eventually led to Kei agreeing to take this whole situation on. So why _he’s_ the one being so rudely awoken is anyone’s guess.

Cats just do what they wanna do... as is further evidenced by the way the paw resumes batting at him shortly after he’s pushed it away.

Finally cracking his eyes open, he finds a black face peering down at him, a little red bow on the collar below. Ah, this must be... Kuro, then. _Not_ named for the person you’re no doubt thinking of, a fact which drives him mad and thus amuses Kei to no end. Judging by the warm weight that’s anchored to his belly, Kuro’s namesake partner has also come to rouse him (Toro, all white).

Kei’s tempted to shake Hinata awake and make _him_ get up to appease the hungry ~~pests~~ pets, just so he can stay tucked up in the warmth of their futon a little longer. But when he glances over to see tufts of orange stuck haphazardly above the blankets, he can’t bring himself to. Besides, it’ll be a whole lot less warm once Hinata’s up.

It’s all for naught in the end anyway, since no sooner are Kei’s feet on the cold tatami than the rest of the cats have cottoned on, and while none of them are particularly noisy - thank god - all six of them eager for breakfast is still a commotion. Plus, no less than _three_ of them have to disentangle themselves from Hinata to crawl out from under the blankets. No wonder Kei didn’t wake up with his boyfriend wrapped around him, as is customary.

The pang of petty jealousy he feels lasts only a moment though, as Hinata’s quickly sitting up, eyes barely even open and expression slack as he mumbles scant syllables.

“‘Ssss OK. ‘Mm up, I’ll feed ‘em.”

He’s hardly even awake and he’s already putting Kei - and his aversion to the cold, and mornings - first. Which is precisely why someone with said aversions is wrapping himself up in his dressing gown rather than crawling back beneath the blankets; well, trying to, what with the small feline (who names even their cat ‘Cat Battleship’ anyway) hanging off the gown’s belt.

“I’ve got it. But you can start on breakfast.”

Ten minutes later, six fuzzy butts are stuck in the air, the faces which go with them buried in food bowls as the cats munch down their morning meal. Why Kenma had to go and adopt six of them Kei doesn’t know, though he suspects the fact that the number matches one side of a volleyball court is more than mere coincidence.

Kei hates the smell of cat food almost as much as he does the cold - even this posh stuff Kenma spoils them with - which is just great because some of it got on his hands and the taps refuse to run hot this early in the morning. Flexing his frigid fingers as he dries them off, he curses Kenma’s choice of living accommodations, and rejoins Hinata and the cats in the kitchen.

They have a small breakfast of rice porridge with honey and ginger before getting washed and dressed. Kei would honestly prefer to stay in his pajamas all day, but they’re meant to run some errands; in the end he’s grateful he got dressed when he did, when one of the cats - Choro, that one’s easy since he’s the only grey one - comes in from outside.

Covered in a fine dusting of snow.

Kei bows his face into his hands as Hinata leaps into action, and he’s surprised the old sliding doors to the back garden don’t come right out their tracks, he makes such a racket tearing them open. When Kei looks up, the scene beyond is blanketed in a thick layer of snow, with more drifting down from the grey clouds hanging above. Hinata’s silhouetted against the brightness, arms spread wide between the doors and his chest swelling with excitement.

Before Kei can protest - not that he’d bother by this point, he knows who he’s dating - his coat and myriad of other cold-weather accessories have been flung at him, and Hinata’s scampering between the front door and the veranda again, their shoes in hand. Hinata looks set to head out in just his jeans and sweater, but Kei manages to corral him into his coat and earmuffs at least.

“Uwaaaah!” Hinata shouts once they’re finally out in it (still too soon in Kei’s opinion), leaping down from the veranda to stomp his shoes into the pillowy stuff and kick up a storm. “Snow so cool! Do you think they’re having this much back home? Natsu’s gonna be so excited!”

Hinata’s immediate thought for his little sister is endearing enough that Kei doesn’t point out how literal and dumb calling snow ‘cool’ is. Stepping down with far more reserve, he does have to admit how beautiful it is, and how it takes his thoughts to home as well. The snow he’s seen these past couple of years in Tokyo has been sparse, and all too quickly turned to slush beneath the heavy city footfall. They might be in Tokyo now, but Kenma’s garden turns out to be the perfect place to enjoy this unexpectedly heavy fall.

Ah, but of course. It’s only been half a year since Hinata came back.

“Do they get snow in Rio?” He asks, even though he’s sure of the answer already, just so that Hinata can tell him himself.

“Nope! I heard they get it in other parts of Brazil but I didn’t go anywhere they do,” he answers, already having moved on from admiring the snow to getting his hands on it. Kei shivers sympathetically as he watches him scoop some up, and wishes he’d managed to make him wear some gloves. Hinata doesn’t seem bothered though, compacting handfuls of it together gleefully until he’s made a good sized snowball and--

“Don’t you _dare_ ,” Kei just about gets out, before he’s spluttering around a mouthful of snow and _right_. It is _on_.

The cats must think they’re mad as they watch from the screen doors, and Kei’s inclined to agree with them. The muted calm is broken by shouts and muffled curses as they each attempt to get the other as thoroughly iced as possible, but most important - and loudest - is the laughter. Kei’s breathless by the end, glasses blurred and dripping, and it feels like half the garden’s found its way inside his coat, either up his sleeves or down his back, in no way hindered by his scarf. Hinata’s not even _wearing_ a scarf, something Kei took great and vicious advantage of - as well as his height - shoving fistfuls of snow down the back of his neck as he screeched and flailed. Hinata _had_ started this, after all. But Kei would finish it.

Were he with anyone else he’d have just escaped back into the warmth of the house and spared himself the activity; hell, he wouldn’t have gone out in the first place - except maybe for Yamaguchi, who always knew how to wear him down. But it’s worth it to see Hinata’s nose and cheeks tinged pink with chill and exertion, his wide-mouthed laughter panting out in great clouds of white.

Eventually Hinata flops back to lie in the snow, and Kei takes that as his victory, even if it might just be with the new goal of creating a snow angel.

“Come on, or you’ll catch a cold. I’m not looking after you _and_ the cats.”

Hinata’s only reply is to stick his arms straight up in the air, silently demanding Kei help him up.

Lying on his back a moment later with the wind knocked out of him, he realises he never should never have trusted him - no matter how disarming he might be.

“You’re no angel,” he quips as Hinata returns to dragging his arms and legs through the snow, flashing him a toothy grin that’s white enough to rival the snow.

Kei sighs, and once the mist has cleared looks up at the sky, the snow still falling slowly. It’s all blurry, whether through his damp glasses or over the top of them, but… it’s tranquil, and he decides he can put up with the cold just a little longer.

“Kinda reminds me of sand,” Hinata quietly reminisces, before barking out a laugh. “That’s dumb, isn’t it?”

“Partly,” Kei agrees, because even if it is, he can see where Hinata’s coming from.

“Ooh! Let’s make snow bunnies!” Hinata practically shouts, sitting bolt upright beside him. Kei groans and pushes himself to stand, and this time when he reaches to help Hinata up he accepts it properly.

“Absolutely not. Come on, you really will get sick.”

Finally succumbing to common sense, Hinata follows him back into the house. They carefully step out of their shoes on the veranda, hopping into the house to avoid wet socks (to match the rest of them) and beating their shoes together before ferrying them back to the doorstep. Coats and the rest are hastily shed after that and oh, what do you know, the hot water’s running properly.

After a very long and enjoyable shared shower, they wrestle back on plenty of layers, only to find that the snow hasn’t let up at all. Deciding to forego their errands for another day, they consider watching a movie on Kenma’s huge projector, when Hinata has a better idea.

(Kei learned early on that Hinata is full of ideas, and surprisingly, more often than not, they’re good ones.)

The heat from the kotatsu is just blissful, and makes up for the cold coming in through the open doors. The view is just like it was earlier, the fresh snowfall covering the mess they’d made with their playing, except this time Hinata’s sitting opposite Kei, wrapped up in a fluffy sweater with his equally fluffy socks jammed between Kei’s calves. It’s not just because the touch is quietly intimate; there’s hardly space for them anywhere else, all six of the cats having found their way under the kotatsu as well.

Between them sits a bowl of winter mikan - satsumas - and, either side, the remains of those they’ve eaten. Kei’s side contains two peels, each entire and reminiscent of an open flower. It’s impossible to tell how many Hinata’s eaten just by looking, because the peels are all in uneven bits, strewn about in a big mess.

“Says here,” Hinata says around a mouthful of satsuma segments, reading an article on his phone about what the respective states of their peels mean. “That you are ‘typically introverted and extremely intelligent’.” He stops to laugh, shifting where he sits as if extremely pleased.

“And ‘calculating, shy and insensitive’! Hah, who wrote this? Have they met you?”

“Creepy,” Kei says, nibbling on a single segment, still from his second mikan. “What does it say about children who don’t swallow before they laugh?”

“Rude.”

“The poor kotatsu agrees with me, you’ve sprayed bits all over it.”

“It _says_ ,” Hinata pushes forward, rubbing one sleeve across the tabletop and making the whole situation undeniably worse. “That I am ‘impulsive and extroverted, social and fun’!”

“So, dumb, loud, and you never think anything through? Sounds accurate.”

That earns him a pointed nudge under the kotatsu, because a kick would disturb the cats.

“Shut up, you think I’m fun.”

“Hmm,” Kei hums noncommittally, though the smirk which accompanies it is too soft, too fond. Oh alright, it’s a smile, okay? His boyfriend is fun and he’s smiling about it. Get off his case.

They fall into an easy silence, watching the snow gently drift down outside, until the kettle (resting on a space heater nearby) begins to whistle. Kei tops up their cups with more green tea, and finds Hinata staring him down when he goes to hand his back to him.

“What?”

“You said something mean. So you gotta say something nice, too.”

That gets him rolling his eyes. They’ve been dating long enough - since the end of their first year of high school, no less - that he _knows_ Hinata gets his teasing. That he knows how - and how deeply - Kei feels about him.

Still, it’s nice to indulge him from time to time.

Just when he opens his mouth to do so, however, Hinata’s phone pings from the tabletop. He snatches it up, because they both know who it’s most likely to be.

“It’s Kenma… Ah! He’s gotten through the quarter finals!!”

Hinata is immediately suffused with excitement for his friend, and begins tapping out his congratulations, practically wiggling where he sits once again. It’s not really a surprise of course - even in the USA, where he’s flown for this gaming tournament, Kenma’s rarely challenged. He is, though Kei doesn’t know much about it, apparently just that good.

“Guess they’re not flying back early then,” Kei says, looking down when he feels something brushing over his thighs. Kupo, the fluffiest and - in Kei’s experience - sappiest of the cats, is trying to settle on his lap, so he reaches down to scoop him up and hold him like a baby instead. The long pale hairs which stick to his sweater will be a pain to get out, but it’s worth it.

“That okay?”

He looks up from where his fingers are ruffling the dense fur of Kupo’s belly, to find Hinata’s gaze fixed on him once again. The duration of their stay was always open-ended like this, but they’ve both taken enough time off their respective livelihoods to cover it regardless.

This time Kei’s the one to nudge his foot against Hinata, rubbing up the inside of his calf as he smiles, and Kupo purrs against his chest.

“Yeah. Should be _fun_.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!! Hope you got some warm, fuzzy feels to help you through these hard winter months.
> 
> Trivia time - all of Kenma's cats are named for video game characters... except one, whose name I didn't end up giving (it's Jiji, because Kiki's Delivery Service is a classic). Can you work out where the others are from?
> 
> You can find me on twitter at [@thirdgymspirit](https://twitter.com/thirdgymspirit)!


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